> One objective way is to look at average height, which increased throughout the 19th century in the US, and increased in other countries when they adopted free market agriculture. Height is a good proxy for having sufficient nutritious food.

An insightful way to look at it; thanks. However, the question at hand isn't about the average, but the low end: Was there malnutrition or starvation? Yes, there was and is.

EDIT: See this post for some numbers:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13298775

I'm not debating whether free market food works very well for 90% in wealthy countries (just a guess at a number) and far better than whatever was done in the 18th century, but that doesn't mean we should call it sufficient or the 'best of all possible worlds'. If millions (tens of millions?) of people in wealthy countries and (hundreds of millions? billions?) in other countries are not getting sufficient food, that's failure - just less failure than we experienced before.